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Whisenhunt: Cardinals Guard Against Losing Focus

The Associated Press

Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt watches quarterback Kurt Warner during Thursday's practice.

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By BRETT McMURPHY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 30, 2009

Now comes the hard part for the Arizona Cardinals: waiting for kickoff to arrive.

Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said this morning after practice his team must guard against losing its focus between now and Sunday night's kickoff of Super Bowl XLIII.

"After today's practice when there is some down time, losing that focus is always a concern," Whisenhunt said. "But there were a couple of games we lost our focus, so that puts us more on edge to keep that focus."

Whisenhunt said the Cardinals benefited from a 47-7 loss to the New England Patriots in their second-to-last regular-season game. After that, the Cardinals beat the Seattle Seahawks, 32-25, in the regular-season finale and have won three consecutive playoff games as an underdog to reach the franchise's first Super Bowl.

"What you have to do to be consistently successful in this league, it's not just the X's and O's, it's believing in each other," Whisenhunt said. "That was our biggest improvement, especially defensively."

Whisenhunt said the Cardinals, especially the defense, realized they just had to worry about individual responsibilities and not trying to do too much, and it would make the overall team better.

"If I do my job … we have enough good players those plays will come to us," he said. "That's where we made some big plays" in the first playoff win against Atlanta.

Whisenhunt joked that his civil engineering degree from Georgia Tech has paid off as an NFL coach.

"In civil engineering, you're finding creative solutions to problems," he said. "It's very similar to football. You're going to face different defenses and different offenses, and you have to be creative on how you [attack] them."

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